Succulents in the Winter

Hello, hivers and garden lovers!

It's been a while since I've written anything in this community. With a couple of feet of snow on the ground, you can imagine that there's not much gardening going on here right now. I haven't even started thinking seriously about starting any seeds yet. I have to wait until the end of March to start anything because I can't even put plants into the greenhouse until the beginning of May. It's too cold at night until then, the greenhouse won't provide cold protection until the night time temps are usually above freezing.

I do have a few plants that I keep in the house through the winter, and put outside in the summer. Some of the plants go out to the greenhouse, and one of my plants spends the summer in the partial shade of one of the plum trees.

I have a ficus tree of some kind that I've had for almost 20 years now, I got it in the early 2000s. It has taken on a low growing style that looks somewhat like a bonsai tree that's gone feral. It doesn't really like the dry winter air in the house, but I'm sure the outside cold of winter would kill it.

The plant to the right of the ficus is a New Mexico high country yucca. We collected seeds from a yucca plant along the highway when we took a trip to the southwest in February of 2011. We were able to get one of the seeds to sprout by planting it in a pot in the greenhouse in the summer heat. It spends the summers in the greenhouse to take advantage of the sun and heat. It's a slow growing plant, but I guess that is to be expected of a plant like this. This type of yucca normally grows in areas above 3000 foot altitude in New Mexico, U.S. The fact that I'm able to keep this one alive here is pretty cool. The plant almost died a couple of years ago, but it sent up a couple more plant s from the roots, so now there's 3 separate plants in the pot. I need to put this plant in a bigger pot this coming summer. Of course, that will make it harder to move the plant due to the weight.

I also have a succulent that's a relative of the "Mother-in law's Tongue" I don't know the official name of this plant. It's supposed to be in the same family as the aloe and agave plants. I got this plant from a cactus and succulent dealer down in Tucson, AZ when we took our trip out there in 2011. This plant also spends the summer out in the greenhouse. I was told by the seller that this plant is sensitive to freezing weather, so it stays in the house in the winter. I really should put this plant in a bigger pot also, it's pretty close to out-growing this pot.

Also, you'll notice my other succulent plant next to the big plant. That is a type of "Hens and Chicks" plant, otherwise known as houseleeks. I've had this plant for about 3 or 4 years now. For the first year that I had it, it didn't really grow very much. It put out a couple of runners, which I rooted into smaller pots. Last summer it expanded greatly, overfilling the pot it's in. It started putting out more runners, so I'm tryinmg to root some of them in more small pots. It's also growing long stems from some of the plants, which I think are flower stalks. Of course, I could be wrong about that.

I also have a couple of these plants that I left out in the greenhouse this winter. They're supposed to be cold hardy, so I decided to see how they would do if I left them in the greenhouse through the winter. This picture was taken a few days ago. These are the runners that I rooted last year. They're going to need bigger pots this coming summer.

These plants seem to be doing just fine in the greenhouse right now. I just have to check on them every few days to make sure that they don't get too dry with all the freeze and thaw cycles that the greenhouse gets on sunny days this time of year.

That's all the gardening news that I have for you right now. Thanks for stopping by to check out this post!